Mavis, the Friendly Ghost
by bellagill92
Summary: Most kids just stick to imaginary friends. But of course, the Dreyar twins just had to take a step further: they had a friendly ghost. (Part of the 'Our World' series. Can be read as a stand-alone fic.)


**A/N: So, I got an anonymous request on tumblr a boatload of time ago (around the time I posted my first fic) to write something about Miraxus family with Master Mavis in the mix. If the person who asked is reading this, sorry it took so long (and sorry the miraxus interaction is mentioned rather than shown and that I snuck some Jerza stowaways, so to speak, towards the end of the fic) but better late then never. **

**I should probably point out, though, that I am not 100% satisfied with the way this fic turned out. It sounded so much better in my head but it's no use gathering dust in my hard drive, so I might as well post it..**

It was a normal day by all standards.

Laxus had gone on a job with the Raijinshuu, as usual, and it had gone according to plan, also as usual. Because the job had necessarily taken place rather late, they'd arrived equally late at Magnolia, sometime after midnight. And again, because Elfman was manly Elfman and it so late at night, there had he been, dutifully waiting for his woman at the train station. Once more, as usual, they spent the next five minutes watching Evergreen yelling at him and berating him for his 'blatant chauvinism' before grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to the home they still didn't officially share (as if anyone believed Elfman still lived across town with Lisanna when the only occasions he slept there were when Evergreen was pissed enough to kick him out) despite the two manly children they _did _share.

After that lively event, the rest of the group quickly scattered to their own homes with quick goodbyes.

The only light he saw still illuminating the house was down at the living room window and, even before he came in, Laxus knew it wouldn't be Mira. No, his hardworking wife couldn't afford to be up so late when she had to open the guild first thing in the morning, though not before feeding, grooming and dressing three kids (honestly, he had no idea how she did it so swiftly – when it was his turn, he felt like a clown dancing on a mind field). So, obviously, it would be the old geezer, likely busy watching one of those dirty movies that they aired on the lacrima-vision late at night. Well into his nineties and still a pervert… good old gramps.

He was already dreaming of his warmed-up bed, courtesy of a scantily clad Mira when he shoved the key into the lock and opened the front door. Maybe if he played his cards right, he'd manage to get a quickie out of her before going to sleep…

Passing through the living room on the way to the stairs, he saw it was indeed his grandfather occupying it while watching something dirty… or well, he _had _been watching it up until falling asleep. Rolling his eyes, Laxus approached the sofa and whacked the old man lightly across the head, rousing him. "Go to bed, Gramps."

"Damn brat! You trying to get me to kick the bucket by waking me up like that?" the Guild Master demanded upon his rude awakening.

"Sure. I can't stand your presence any longer. That's why I let you live with us," Laxus replied sarcastically.

"It's _my _house."

"You gave it to me when I married Mira or was that just a senior moment?"

"I'll give you the senior moment, boy," he replied with a glare before lowering his voice a little. "How did the job go? I'd better not be receiving a repair bill from it anytime soon!"

Laxus chuckled. "Pfft, we're not Team Natsu. The job went fine. Just go to bed, Geezer. You can get another dose of uncensored titties tomorrow," he told him, making his way up the stairs as his grandfather cursed him from below.

The usual routine begun. Before going to his room, at the end of the hall, he paused at the second door to the left and opened it, looking in. As expected, he spotted a sleeping blond toddler inside her crib, clutching onto a stuffed eel that was her favorite toy. He went in and adjusted the blankets over his youngest daughter before proceeding into the next room.

Usually, he would have found a pair of white heads poking from under the covers of each of their beds. That wasn't the case.

Both beds were empty and the window (which conveniently stood over a many-a-decade-old ivy-covered wall) was open.

For most parents, that would have been a terrifying sight. For him, it was simply an annoyance. A repetitive annoyance.

"Something wrong, Laxus?" his grandfather asked, hearing his grandson growl inside his great-grandchildren's room just as he was about to make his way into his own.

"Friggin' First, that's what's wrong!" he hissed under his breath before turning on his heel and going back down the stairs so he could go out and follow the trail of their smell.

* * *

"… and if you glance that way, you will get a lovely glimpse of the Milky Way," Mavis, the ghost of Fairy Tail's first master, announced.

"That's our galaxy!" another Mavis, this one a little girl with her mother's white hair and her father's gold-tinged eyes rather than a ghost, remarked.

"Why, yes indeed it is, Namesake," the ghost proudly stated. What a bright child, she thought. She didn't want to take the credit for that, seeing as there were no blood ties between them but it seemed the stars truly smiled on girls with her name.

When it came to namesakes of the Sixth, though… Well, she supposed they couldn't all be lucky.

"Bah, when will stars start falling?" young Makarov, the second, moaned. He was starting to get bored. It wasn't that stars were boring but they'd been there for what seemed like _hours_ and he still hadn't been able to see any of the meteors he'd been promised. He wanted to see if they'd crash into stuff and cause big ass explosions.

"Patience, Young Makarov," Master Mavis told him with a smile. He was just like his father – impatient and always ready for action. He resembled him closely too, although his coloring was defenitely his mother's, white hair and blue eyes. "They will appear anytime now."

"They'd better hurry. I want to see if they're cooler than the ones Ginger Brain's dad can make. Then, I'll rub it on his face," he declared.

Mavis, the little girl, frowned and glared at her brother. "Don't call him that. You're always so mean to him!"

"He's mean to me too!" Makarov countered.

"Only when you're meaner," she declared.

"You only say that 'cause you like him," Makarov taunted her. "You wanna _marry_ him and do gross stuff like Mom and Dad."

"Do not!"

"Do too. You want to be Mrs. Scarlet. Mavis and Ging…" Before he could finish, little Mavis, having gotten up previously, made a point of kicking him on the shin, replacing his words with a yelp.

Master Mavis sighed. Of all the days for them to get bickering… It might not look like it but the twins usually got along very well. There was teasing and bickering but it was rare as Makarov usually preferred to pick on the Scarlet boy, who was more than willing to pick right back. It took _a lot_ to get little Mavis angry but when she did… well, there was no doubt her mother was the She-Demon herself. So, clearly, her brother had been pressing a particularly sensitive button.

Before she had to intervene, however, someone else did it for her.

"Oi, brats!"

And so, the twins went completely quiet… for a second, at least.

"Daddy!" Mavis shouted, getting to her feet and running straight to her father, wrapping herself around his waist as if she hadn't seen him in a year rather than half a day. Laxus had to literally force himself not to look down at her because if that cute, little Mira as much as batted her eyes at him, he might just dissolve into mush and do all her bidding. They were dangerous, those Strauss women… especially the ones who were actually named Dreyar.

"Uh-ho," Makarov said. "Busted."

"You bet your ass you are," Laxus replied. "What do you have to say for yourselves, brat one and brat two? Empty beds in the middle of the night…"

"Master Me told us to," Mavis – the little girl, not the ghost – declared, pointing at her namesake, who giggled as if she was six as well, no trace of shame or regret on her face.

Did that annoy Laxus? Oh, freaking yes, it did. Did it _surprise _him? Well, after the amount of times he'd found himself chasing after his kids over the First's middle-of-the-night field trips in the past year alone, the surprise element was pretty much gone. Why hadn't he done something about it yet like, say, apply salt lines, asked a priest to perform an exorcism or (more reasonably) tell Freed to surround the kids' room with runes to keep them from being led out by bored ghosts? Well…

"Gramps says everyone in the guild has to obey the Master, both current one _and_ former ones," Makarov the second, provided. "If you don't, you're grounded."

… and there it was. At the mere suggestion of blocking the First from entering his house, the geezer had all but lost it and threatened to block him from S-Class jobs for a month – there was no end to the amount of sucking up his grandfather did on the founder of the guild. And since he wasn't looking forward to being stuck with lame jobs with bad pay for that long, he'd suck it up. It sure didn't help that Mira actually seemed to be completely okay with the kid's outings unless they came back trailing her floor with mud like had been the case last time around, allegedly because they'd fallen in a swamp while hunting for Fairies with the Master and Erza's brat.

"Not _all _of the Masters. Grandpa said that the Second was bad and is on a time-out," Mavis – again, the little girl – added. "Also, we're not supposed to listen to the Fourth because he drinks too much and the Fifth because everything he did when he was master was stupid."

It didn't go amiss to Laxus that one of the things Gildarts had done as the fifth master was allowing him back into the guild – Gramps was probably still stung that he didn't get to hold that over his head a little longer… But then again, the joke was on the old man because it had been Gildarts naming him as sixth too. "So, basically, that leaves just him and the First," he gathered. "Convenient."

"Indeed," Mavis, the ghost, confirmed. "Did you come to enjoy this lovely view of the Perseids, Laxus?"

"Sure. How could I live with myself if I missed such a sight?" he said, clearly sarcastic.

And, still, either she didn't seem to get it or didn't care, just smiling. "Exactly! It is the largest meteor shower in the summer. I couldn't possibly let those two miss it – they've never seen it before. Oh, it's so exciting to be the first one to show them."

"And I suppose tomorrow you'll also be the first one to get them out of bed in time for school," he jabbed.

"Don't be silly, Daddy, tomorrow's a Saturday!" Mavis, his daughter, informed him.

He scratched his chin. A Saturday… Really? Had the week passed that fast? He guessed he should be happy about that. Lisanna opened the guild on weekends and his grandfather usually took the kids to the park on Saturday mornings… which meant he and Mira would have some alone time, so he _might_ be getting in her pants sometime in the near future. Maybe his life didn't suck as much…

"Daddy, look! A shooting star!" little girl Mavis said, bouncing happily up and down. "Make a wish!"

He looked up and saw a white line of light on the sky, straight as a razor. He had to admit it was kind of cool. And he was supposed to make a wish? Oh well, what could he go for? Less perviness for gramps? That Mavis (ghost Mavis) latched onto some kid other than his? That his wife was in the mood the following morning? He scratched his chin. Well, he guessed he could go with the latter… and the usual health and happiness crap.

"You can't say it to anybody now or it won't come true!" his daughter warned him.

"Fine," he replied a little stiffly before turning to the first master. "How come you didn't kidnap Erza's brat this time too? Titania too scary for you all of a sudden?"

"No. They just weren't home," Mavis said, shamelessly not even bothering to deny the kidnapping accusation. "I assume they went for a stargazing trip of their own. Jellal is quite the astronomy enthusiast, what with his power and all. I'm not afraid to admit that I have learned a thing or two from him despite being in this world far longer than he has."

"Nerd," Laxus mumbled, even though he tended to consider the man one of his closest friends these days. They had, after all, been through some battles together, the most noteworthy of all having been the months they'd had to deal with the moody, destructive and depressive nutjobs that had been their pregnant partners. Freaking nightmare.

"Well, brats, don't get comfortable. You've got beds waiting for you at home," Laxus informed them.

"But Daddy, we've only seen one shooting star!" Mavis protested. "I've got more wishes!"

"Why didn't you ask them all when you saw that first star?"

"You can't do that!" his daughter replied, horrified. "That's cheating!"

The first master nodded in agreement. "True. One wish per star," she confirmed. "It's the rule."

"Says where?" he challenged

"The rules of the universe! And the Fairy Tail bylaws," she replied.

"The Fairy Tail what?" he asked in disbelief.

"Our rule book! The Second was the one who called it that," Mavis stated. "Don't tell me you've never seen it! And you call yourself the grandson of the Master…" she said, shaking her head in disapproval.

"Hey, I've looked into the rule book and it says nothing about 'shooting stars'!" Laxus protested. "It's just Hades preaching about 'acceptable behavior' and 'mastering the full potential of magic'."

Mavis, the ghost, gasped in horror. "He took out our parts! That meanie!" she accused, clearly speaking of the second master.

"No wonder Grandpa put him on a time out," little girl Mavis whispered to her twin, who solemnly nodded in agreement.

"I should have known he'd make a horrible Master," the First declared with a pout. "He was always going on about how our parts were cluttering a 'serious document' and shooting stars, pinkie promises and guidelines on fairy-searching had no place in a rule book." She sighed. "Yury and Walrod worked so hard on their parts too. So mean!"

"Who's Yury and Walrod?" young Makarov asked.

Mavis's sour mood immediately went away at the mention of her old friends. "Oh, they were my best friends! They funded Fairy Tail with me and the Second. And guess what? Yury was your great-grandfather's father!"

"Really?" Little girl Mavis asked, amazed, before turning to her father. "How come you didn't say anything, Daddy?"

"Didn't come up," Laxus replied. Truth to be told, he purposely hadn't mentioned it because he didn't want them to get ideas. Knowing how deeply his family was connected to the guild was one of the things that made it so easy for the notion that he was entitled to be Master to engrain itself in his mind. It was bad enough that they knew they were great-grandkids of the third and sixth master.

Eyes twinkling, the youngest Mavis turned to the First. "So he was our… hmm, great… great… grandpa?" she said, counting the 'greats' with her fingers. The late master nodded, making her namesake beam. "What was he like?"

"Well… we looked a bit like your father," she pointed out, eyeing Laxus. "His hair was nicer."

"Hey!" the Dragon Slayer protested.

"His attitude was better too," she added with a little laugh. "He was just so silly. I'm quite proud of my own sections of our rule book but I have to admit Yury's were the funniest: 'Acceptable and unacceptable pick-up lines for guild members', 'Fairy Tail's code of conduct for bromance', 'One-hundred foolproof ways to chillax', 'The Dreyar method for guild partying' …"

Laxus glowered. He could see why she got complaints by the deskful too. His great-grandfather sounded like the lovechild of Natsu, Cana and the Trimens.

But the First was pouting again. "I can't believe the Second threw those away," she mumbled.

"Maybe he didn't!" her little namesake declared. "We'll look for them! We'll make a wish upon a star to help us." But then, she became aware of what she'd just done and covered her mouth in horror. "Oh, no! I said! Now it's never coming true!"

"That's okay. It will still come true if all the people who heard it agree to give up their next wish to a star and make yours too instead!"

That, Laxus had never heard before. "Let me guess – you wrote than on the rule book." He wasn't that surprised that Hades called it 'clutter'…

The first master nodded, proud of herself.

Before he could actually scoff at it, he found a pair of arms wrapping themselves around him. That time, he made the mistake of actually looking down. A pair of gold, calf-like eyes looked up at him pleadingly. "Make my wish, Daddy. _Please!_"

He was done for. Truth to be told, he wasn't entirely sure his daughter hadn't inherited a certain power from her mother. A power she had pulled kicking and screaming out of a Tartarus demon – mind control or, as Mira called it, Macro. It sure seemed that way because if she'd asked him to go fetch one of the shooting stars off the sky, he might have actually considered it for a whole minute before self-perseverance kicked in, reminding him he didn't stand a chance.

"Whatever," he mumbled, looking away – yet, despite his attempt not to sound too much like his daughter's bitch, the little girl beamed, knowing he might as well have said yes.

Immediately she tried the same on her brother. "You'll ask it for me too, right?"

It was to no avail – the kid did, of course, have his own share of demonic genes. "No way! I'm not wasting stars on you after you kicked me," Makarov replied. He had his own wishes to make: like no more homework for _ever_ and inheriting his mother's Demon Takeover one day because it was really cool and he'd wipe the floor with Ginger Brain using it.

Mavis pouted. "You were teasing me too!" she replied. "Daddy! Mac is being nasty!"

"Mavis is being a baby!"

Laxus growled. "Just shut up already, brats. Mac, make your sister's wish."

"What?! But Dad…"

"You can say one of your own out loud and it'll get group treatment too," Laxus added, turning to Master Mavis. "Let me guess, your little rule book said that made it stronger."

"Yes!" the First declared, incredibly impressed. "Oh, my, Laxus, there may still be hope for you."

He groaned. "Let's just sit down, look at the sky and get it over with."

"Fine but my wish gets said first," Makarov stated.

"But I asked first!"

"I'm doing you a favor!"

"Wishes are not favors, stupid!"

Laxus inhaled sharply, feeling like approaching the nearest tree and banging his head repeatedly against it. He blamed Mavis – ghost Mavis, that was. He wasn't sure how exactly to spin the reason for it but he sure as hell _did_. He'd assumed, years before when his kids were born that he wouldn't have to worry about them being led astray until their teenage years… and even then, he'd thought it would have been by some punk he could fry with his lightening, not the ghost of the first master of his guild! Had he brought it on himself? He probably had. He had, after all, named his daughter after _her._ If somebody asked, it was not out of fondness but instead in hopes that it would lead the fairy-like ghost to hand one of the guild's great spells over to his kid.

But when had his life become _that_ in the first place? By which he meant a big ball of goo consisting of childrearing, ghost-sitting and wife-lusting in which trying to look cool was not even at the top ten of his list of priorities! More importantly: when had he started to _like it_?! He was actually considering giving into Mira's begging for him to help her add a fourth little monster to the brood, as if it wasn't bad enough they were outnumbered already!

Unreal! Jellal was supposed to be the thoroughly whipped guy in the guild, not him!

But, like the whipped guy he was, the ten to fifteen minutes he'd planned to spend stargazing with his kids turned into something like an hour and a half, eventually culminating on the little brats – once again in friendly terms with each other – falling asleep on him. He might or might not have enjoyed parts of said hour and a half (seventy percent of it at the most, he stubbornly told himself).

"This really has been a pleasant night," Mavis, the ghost, observed. For a moment, she thought of the fellow ghost whose company she enjoyed these days. "Maybe I'll bring Zeref along next time!"

Laxus's eyes widened. "Hell no!"

* * *

**Omake**

"Dad, the telescope tilted down," the young boy said before turning around to see his father. The scene he found was not one he appreciated. "Yuck! Mom! Dad! What are you doing?!"

The couple immediately pulled away from each other. Even only partially illumined by the fire, their blushes were noticeable, having been caught in the act by their own son. Well, 'caught in the act' seemed too harsh an expression. They'd just been sneaking a little peck under the stars, after all. But for the boy in question, that was a capital crime.

"Nothing, nothing," Erza replied hurriedly as her husband got to his feet and approached his son.

"So, what happened to the telescope?" Jellal asked, trying to sound composed. "Oh, I see, it's facing down. You must've touched something by accident – don't worry, I'll set it back up."

With his arms crossed and not moving an inch, his son narrowed his eyes at him, accusing look on his face. "You were doing gross stuff. I _saw_," he stated.

Jellal's cheeks became even redder and he could only be thankful that he was facing away from the light. "Has it occurred to you that maybe your mother had something in her eye and maybe I was trying to get it out?"

Epic fail. Not only did his son give him a clear 'that's bullshit' look but also Erza laughed behind him. "Good God, Jellal," she said in utter amusement. He sighed – he couldn't lie to save his own hide…

"You _were _doing gross stuff," their son insisted, finally stepping away from the telescope, standing midway between it and their little camp around the fire. It had been his father's idea to surprise him and his mom with an impromptu camping trip. They had taken off an hour or two before sunset and set camp atop a hill that offered a great view of the stars – he'd been excited about it all the way there… that was, of course, because he'd expected his parents to be able to _behave_.

It wasn't that he caught them that often but every time was just so… _gross_. He could only be thankful he wasn't as impressionable as, say, Mavis, who'd apparently been so traumatized by her frequent runs into her own parents' displays of affection that she'd tried to kiss _him_ once. He'd had to sit her down and very rationally explain to her just how icky the act of kissing was – not just her in particular but actually _anybody_ –, how brain-damaged grown-ups must be in order to like it and how they had to respect them despite it because it was probably the product of the frequent head trauma they got while doing their heroic deeds but should still scold them in hopes of righting that wrong. She'd understood and, ever since, made a point of 'ew-ing' every time somebody at the guild succumbed to their impairment.

"I thought we had a rule about this," he reminded his parents. "Remember?"

His mother chuckled and proceeded to quote herself. "Not in front of the baby."

"Mom! I'm not a baby!" he vehemently protested.

Chuckling again, Erza got a hold of her son's arm and pulled him into her lap. "You were when the rule was made," she pointed out, resting her chin on top of his red hair.

"Mo-om," he whined, annoyed. And yet, he didn't make much of a point of trying to get away from her because he kind of liked being in her lap. It was comfortable. Still, when a strand of her long hair fell on his shoulder, he actively fought the urge to grab it because he was a big boy and couldn't go around holding onto Mommy's hair forever, even if it was so soft and pretty.

"Hey, I think that's Laxus down at the clearing over there," Jellal said from the telescope, which was still tilted down rather than up, facing the bottom of the hill they'd camped on.

"Laxus?" Erza asked skeptically. "Out here? Don't tell me he's stargazing." She just couldn't picture the thunder Dragon Slayer doing so. That was so… domestic of him. Even married to Mira, domesticity was not something they often displayed… well, not in public, at least.

"He might be," Jellal said, still looking down. "The twins are there too. And Master Mavis. They're all sitting on the floor."

Their son gasped, jumping from his mother's lap and going to stand by his father's side, glaring at the general area the telescope was pointing at. "They went on an adventure without me," he mumbled to himself with a pout.

It didn't come unheard to his parents, who looked at each other behind him, silently agreeing not to scold him for his disappointment, even though he was actually lamenting not having broken the rules. Even when he did break them in similar circumstances, they didn't really scold him too hard because they knew it was mostly Master Mavis's doing and at least their son was enough of a good boy to leave a note behind saying where he'd gone, usually prompting one or both of them to go after them and watch over from afar.

"Well, it's not like they could really find you at home to ask you to come along, buddy," Jellal pointed out, much to the young boy's alarm, who hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud. "Don't take it personally."

Erza sighed, getting up to join her boys by the telescope. "Would you like to join them for a little bit with permission for once?" she suggested, feeling particularly generous that night.

Her son looked up at her in surprise. It was a rare opportunity and a tempting offer. But at the same time… "That's okay. Dad brought the three of us here to see the stars together. I can be with them tomorrow."

Erza smiled, stroking her son's hair fondly at his response.

"Besides," he added. "They probably don't have strawberry cake down there."

And there it was, Jellal thought with a chuckle. Like mother, like son. He could forever be in their good graces just by providing them with cake. How they weren't morbidly obese by then was beyond him.

"That reminds me. We should finish it before it spoils," Erza pointed out. "It's the middle of summer."

… never mind that the cake had been baked just hours before and it was unseasonably cold that night, which reduced the chances of cake spoiling to a much lower level.

"Erza, it's already hours past our usual bedtime," Jellal pointed out. "Are you sure it's a good idea to eat _more_ cake? The two of you will be up until dawn with a sugar rush."

The two redheads looked at him like he'd just grown a second head.

"Scarlets don't get _sugar rushes_," his son stated, profoundly disturbed that he'd think otherwise.

"How long have you known us?" Erza asked, mild disgust at his ignorance in her voice.

Clearly outnumbered, Jellal sighed. "Never mind. I must be mixing you up with my _other_ wife and son," he joked in defeat.

"Oh, you mean you ended up marrying that faceless fiancée of yours? How bigamous of you," Erza replied, merely raising an eyebrow.

She might as well have aimed for the gut, really, because he sure had opened himself up to that. "Ouch," he mumbled.

"You brought it on yourself," she replied, not regretful at all.

Their son looked between the two of them, wondering what sort of nonsense they were talking about. "You guys are weird," the boy declared. "I'm getting the cake."

"Wait for me to cut it," Erza reminded her son before turning to his father. "Would you like a piece as well?"

There was no bigger declaration of love from Erza Scarlet than her offering to share her cake. And that time, although he usually declined because he wasn't that fond of strawberry cake and his wife and son would enjoy it far more than he would, he nodded. "Sure."

Someone had to save his family from a diabetic coma.


End file.
